1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a method for remote routes calculation and navigation with automatic route detection and revision to reduce navigation data transmission in navigation centers and increase navigation accuracy for alerting timely response on route deviations to enhance navigation accuracy.
2. Description of the Prior Art
With continuous increasing of leisure time and growing ownership of cars, a lot of people like to drive long way to remote recreational locations to spend long week ends or vacations. However complicated road systems often create annoying problems for drivers who do not know the journeys and routes well. In order to help drivers to mitigate those troubles, many navigation systems have been developed and introduced. A lot of navigation systems now available on the market require users (people or cars) to carry a terminal which contains built-in electronic maps and navigation software for calculating routes, and a Global Positioning System (GPS) device to determine self location. Users have to locate in advance the destination on the electronic map, and through road data in the electronic map to calculate a driving route to display with the electronic map on the display device. Users may follow the route and drive to the destination. While such navigation function can achieve navigation purpose, there are still drawbacks to be overcome, notably:
1. Users have to spend a lot of money to buy computers, electronic maps and operating systems.
2. Setting destinations is quite difficult and time-consuming. People generally have difficulty to read maps on paper. To read electronic maps on computers in cars without input devices such as keyboards and mouse devices is even more difficult.
3. Road changes are difficult to update on electronic maps. Most electronic maps are stored in optical disks. Users have to buy new or updated versions frequently to get the correct and updated road conditions.
4. Route calculations some times could result in not sensible or not useful outcomes, and users generally are not allowed or not capable to fix the problems.
Because of aforesaid disadvantages, people could spend a lot of money on electronic navigation systems but do not get the conveniences desired. In order to resolve aforesaid disadvantages, applicant has proposed a technique that employs an information center to couple with navigation required equipment to provide an instant and convenient navigation system, and has submitted patent application (U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/832,808). However, most navigation processing is done in the navigation center. In order to prevent route deviations during driving, when the navigation center transmits navigation routes, neighboring route data also are included and transmitted to the navigation required equipment. As a result, data transmission volume is greatly expanded. And service time for the navigation center and navigation required users also increase. Communication expenses soar and become a huge burden. There are some other non self-independent navigation information. References can be found in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/832,808 and WO9845823.
It is therefore the goal of the invention to provide a method for remote routes calculation and navigation with automatic route detection and revision. Through the invention, every navigation route transmission requires to transmit only one desired route. Reprocessing to address route deviations is performed only when deviations of the route between two fixed points is greater than a linear deviation limit. Thus data transmission can be reduced to effectively decrease service time for the navigation center, and navigation required users may save communication costs.
The primary object of the invention is to provide a method for remote routes calculation and navigation with automatic route detection and revision to effectively reduce navigation data transmission and increase navigation accuracy.
The foregoing, as well as additional objects, features and advantages of the invention will be more readily apparent from the following detailed description, which proceeds with reference to the accompanying drawings.